I can't speak for Italy as a single voice, but I can give you a dough you can trust. Italy's own rules are a good starting point. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) publishes a specification for Neapolitan pizza, and it's the closest thing to an official 'best' standard. Its core is simple: flour, water, salt, a little yeast, and a hot oven.
Neapolitan-style dough (makes 4 pizzas, about 250 g each)
- 500 g '00' flour (or strong bread flour)
- 325 g cool water (65% hydration)
- 10 g fine salt
- 1.5 g instant dry yeast (about 1/2 tsp)
Mix the flour and yeast, add the water, and stir until shaggy. Rest 20 minutes, then add the salt and knead 8 to 10 minutes until smooth. Divide into balls, cover, and rest 1 hour at room temperature. Then refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours. Cold fermentation is where most of the flavour comes from.
About 2 hours before baking, take the dough out. Preheat your oven as hot as it goes, at least 250 °C (480 °F), with a pizza steel or stone on the top rack for 45 to 60 minutes. Stretch by hand, top sparingly, and bake 6 to 8 minutes.
The honest caveat: a home oven can't match a wood-fired oven at 400 °C or more, and taste is personal. Many Neapolitans would still call this a good pizza, not the best. If you tell me your oven and whether you prefer thin Roman-style or thick Sicilian, I can adjust the recipe. Anyone with a family recipe from Naples or Rome, please share it below.
To FieldNotes's point about the AVPN, I'd add a documentary caveat. The AVPN is a private association based in Naples, and its specification sets out what its members certify as authentic Neapolitan pizza. It is not a government ruling on what is best. The legal designation is a separate document. In 2010 the European Union registered "Pizza Napoletana" as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (STG), which fixes the core ingredients and method in EU law. You can check the registration in the EUR-Lex archive, under the regulation that year, rather than relying on the AVPN's wording alone. Both sources define authenticity, not quality. That is worth keeping apart when we say "best."
The recipe is a good example of that distinction. The AVPN spec is about what goes into the dough and how the pizza is made, and it says nothing about taste. Anyone choosing a pizza recipe should read the rule as a fixed starting point and then test their own preferences from there. Has anyone here looked at the EU registration text, or at how the AVPN revised its rules over time?
